Today, we’re marking Microsoft’s announcement of the general availability of Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams with the launch of an entirely new BT-branded global managed voice service.  

It’s at the cutting edge of future voice services innovation. Delivered directly through Teams, it securely integrates telephony, engineered for quality of service, with the very latest in digital collaboration.

For customers, it will provide pace, simplicity and reach, helping them accelerate their digital transformation by enabling new productive, hybrid workstyles built around Teams.

Voice and telephony services have been around for a long time. If you’re a CIO, the chances are you’ve got a mixed bag of voice technologies and services, fixed and mobile, spread across your organisation which may differ from country to country or even site by site. At the same time, your colleagues’ use of Teams has been soaring since the start of the pandemic.

At BT, we’ve seen the number of customers using our managed Teams service almost double in the past year. And according to Microsoft, total calls on Teams surpassed 1 billion in a single month for the first time earlier this year.

Having seen the benefits of digital tools and workstyles, your colleagues now expect to use them to their full potential. They prefer the ergonomics of simply clicking to talk via the Teams app than using a separate phone or voice service. They assume they’re secure and expect a reliable, quality service. And this is as true in the office as at home — and on the move.

Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams with BT offers a simple and secure way of calling in Teams via BT’s global voice network backed with assured end to end service controls for high quality, low latency voice conversations. It’s an entirely new way for multinational organisations operating in different countries to choose and enable their voice services and it doesn’t matter if you’re an existing BT customer or not.

Ripping up the rule book for an established technology like voice is never easy. When you do, it’s good to have experts on hand — two great enterprise technology, cloud and security brands recognised as leaders in their respective fields. It also helps if your service provider has already invested in a technology platform to remove the complexity of change and offer simple choices.

As BT and Microsoft look forward to delivering Operator Connect for customers across the world, Omar Abbosh, corporate vice president of industry solutions at Microsoft, said: “Operator Connect with BT calling plans is the first step in the realisation of our new strategic partnership with BT and meeting the needs and demands of today’s customers.”

BT Security has published the results of a global survey which canvassed the opinions of over 7000 business leaders, employees and consumers from across the world. The research, conducted in partnership with Davies Hickman Partners, found that in a rapidly changing business environment, the role of the CISO has hugely expanded in its scope and responsibilities. With the research also identifying security as the top priority for businesses after coronavirus, CISOs have never been more integral to business operations.

With this in mind, the research’s finding that 76% of business executives rate their organisation’s IT strategy as excellent or good at protecting against cybersecurity threats seems like positive news. Yet in spite of this, the research also found that this might be misplaced confidence which is leading to complacency, with 84% of executives also saying that their organisation had suffered from data loss or a security incident in the last two years – highlighting the enormity of the task that CISOs face.

The research uncovered a number of interesting reasons why this might be happening. Less than half of respondents said they had definitely received training on data security, while only one in three were fully aware of the policies and procedures they should take to protect the security of their organisation’s data. As a result, a number of concerning behavioural trends were seen, with 45% of employees saying they’d suffered a security incident at work and not reported it, and perhaps even more worryingly, 15% saying they had given their work log-in and password to others in the organisation.

Regular cyber security training for employees is critical, not least because of the increasing importance that consumers are placing on security. The research found that nearly two thirds of consumers would recommend an organisation that makes a big effort to keep their data safe, and a similar number said that security is more important than convenience when choosing who to buy from. The capacity for security to act as a brand differentiator becomes even clearer with the finding that only 16% of consumers strongly trust large organisations to protect their personal data.

In light of these trends and attitudes, the role of the CISO is simultaneously more critical and more multifaceted than even before. Their job is no longer just to protect against threats and manage risk; they are now expected to play a crucial role in managing brand perception, employee engagement and the strategic adoption of new technologies. In spite of this, the research found that less than half of executives and employees could put a name to their CISO (or equivalent), with a similar ratio of respondents saying that their CISO doesn’t actively communicate with the rest of the organisation.

Kevin Brown, Managing Director of BT Security, said: “This report provides a number of clear examples of how CISOs are now expected to provide leadership across an ever-growing number of areas. The huge increase in the pace of digital transformation during 2020 has not only further erased the traditional parameters of the role, but also intensified the scale and complexity of threats to protect against. As a result, CISOs must ensure that they have the visibility that not only makes them the first port of call for security incidents, but also ensures they’re placed at the heart of strategic decision making and planning.”

Craig Jones, Director of Cybercrime at INTERPOL, commented: “The range and scale of cybercrime faced by governments, businesses and individuals is constantly growing. We firmly believe in working collaboratively across the public and private sector to make cyberspace a safer place, and this very much includes CISOs, who are often the first line of defence in responding to cyberattacks. This research from BT shows clearly the increasing responsibilities and expectations placed on the CISO today, and a number of clear steps they can take to improve their protections and our collective resilience.”

The full report, which also provides a number of recommendations around how organisations can improve their security posture, is available to view here: https://www.globalservices.bt.com/en/insights/whitepapers/cisos-under-the-spotlight

For further information on how BT can secure your organisation, visit: www.bt.com/security  

At BT, we recognise that biking to work is an effective way to be environmentally conscious, but it’s not always an easy decision to make so we’ve been testing a way to help eliminate some of those hurdles. During the Synchronicity Smart Cycling Pilot* and the separate CityVerve project** insights on ride conditions encountered by cyclists, including road surface conditions, chosen routes and traffic hotspot areas were gathered by the bike lights and shared with our IoT data hub.

Thanks to both trials we’ve already made some interesting findings from the ride insights. For example, thanks to CityVerve, we were able to determine that cyclists using segregated cycle lanes in the Oxford Road area of Manchester travelled at an average speed of 19.4kph (12mph), which is 6kph (4mph) faster than their counterparts travelling on the road. Not only were they able to travel faster but they were also safer too and had better lane discipline than those cyclists using the roads. In the Synchronicity pilot we focused on deeper analysis and aggregated the information collected from the bike light sensors into virtual cycle counters, saving the city the cost of deploying additional infrastructure.

See.Sense is an innovative start-up company that was the winner of the BT Infinity Awards in 2016. Since its win, See.Sense has been recognised by Road.cc, the biggest online cycling site in the UK, to be the ‘Best Bike Gadget’ in a vote by its readers. The smart bike lights use advanced sensor technology to monitor their environment, reacting by flashing brighter and faster in riskier situations. They also pair with a smartphone app that provides additional connected features for the cyclist including crash detection and theft alerts.

The smart lights have been sending information to our IoT Data Hub allowing us to combine the depersonalised trial data with other factors such as weather. This will demonstrate route preferences and reveal the conditions under which people choose not to cycle – helping to identify areas for improvement.

Using the data supplied by the smart bike lights we were able to ascertain issues that cyclists were facing on their daily commute. This smart technology can help us to better understand the road blocks that face green transportation. We will be sharing our findings with Manchester City Council so they can analyse it and consider if, and where, improvements can be made for cyclists in the city.

The smart light sensor trial in Manchester is only the beginning of our efforts to improve the cycling experience. With cyclist safety at the heart of our work, we’re already running similar trials with See.Sense, in Ipswich, Dublin and Antwerp. Our Manchester trial provides the framework for better cycling conditions and the opportunity for all involved to improve their carbon footprint. By showing seasoned and potential cyclists the popular routes, road conditions and their level of difficulty, consumers can make evidence-based decisions on cycling.

*Synchronicity Smart Cycling Pilot has been running in three different cities (Manchester, Dublin and Antwerp), collecting cycle insights from 800 cyclists in total. The trial in Manchester completed in September 2019

**CityVerve Smart Cycling Trial collected cycling data from 180 users over a period from July 2017 to June 2018